After a whole week of trying to get a theme in readiness, I finished the thing at noon. It came under General History. Cleopatra was what I had to write about. I got it so as to suit my satisfaction. But of course there were some mistakes.

Late 19th century painting of Cleopatra by Jean-Leon Gerome--Maybe this is what Grandma pictured Cleopatra looking like. (Source: Wikipedia)

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

How did Grandma end up writing about Cleopatra? Did she choose the topic? (If so, why?) . . . or did her teacher assign it? (If so, why did he assign it to her instead of to another student?)

The way I picture Cleopatra is strongly affected by the 1960s movie with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.—and I can’t quite envision how people thought about her a hundred years ago.

Was Cleopatra’s beauty, charm and ability to control men generally seen in a positive or a negative light back then? The suffragettes were very active a hundred years ago. Do they see Cleopatra as a role model or as a failure of the past to allow women appropriate roles?